Seagate Will Stop Production of 7200RPM Hard Drives To Focus on SSDs

We've long since wondered when SSDs would hit a price (and size) threshold that most mainstream consumers would opt for one over a conventional HDD. We're still a few years out from that, we imagine, but you can see the writing on the wall. Seagate, one of the world's largest storage companies, already has a mind to kill off the 2.5" (laptop-sized) 7200RPM hard drive from its portfolio. Why? Flash storage is taking off in a major way for portables, while desktops still seem to favor slow-but-huge in many cases. Moreover, the introduction of the hybrid HDD (part flash, part HDD) has made getting a taste of flash a little cheaper.

David Burks, director of marketing and product management at Seagate Technology, was quoted as saying the following: "We are going stop building our notebook 7200rpm hard disk drives at the end of 2013." These high-level product managers are responsible for looking way out into the future in order to shape ongoing product ranges, and this is almost certainly going to spark a trend where HDD makers begin to phase those out in favor of flash-based alternatives.

Many laptops, like the MacBook Air, only ship with a flash-based option. As nice as HDDs have been, you won't find us crying about their death. Long live flash storage!